I'm going to try something a little different here. For the next few Wednesday's I'm going to post a Wednesday Rant. Feel free to agree or disagree, comment or don't comment. It's just a rant. Something to put out there. So without further ado I present...
School.Enough already.
Why is it that we have so many cartoons that involve school? What's the deal? I mean if I'm a kid and I come home from school, turn on the tv to watch cartoons do I really need to see more school? Is this the only type of shows that appeals to T.V. Exec's?
I have a son in grade 3 a daughter in 2 and my youngest in SK. They go to school and usually have homework when they come home. After we finish the homework (which for a 8 and 7 year old can take a couple hours) we have dinner. After dinner they can watch a little tv. What's on tv? Superhero's who go to school. After cartoons we put them to bed and sometimes my wife will read Harry Potter to them. Guess where Harry Potter takes place? School. (Iknow Harry's a little different but still it all takes place at school.)
Remember when you were young and watched cartoons? Bugs Bunny never went to school. Mighty Mouse never went to school. The Smurfs, Scoobi Doo, and the Blue Falcon never went to school.
SCHOOL SCHOOL SCHOOL!!!!
Of course I know how important school is. And I realize not all cartoons have an element of school in them but hey this is my rant and I say give the kids a little break.
6 comments:
With a Gr.2 and an SK in school I hear where you're coming from.
You'll hear things like Warner Bros. are considered to "violent" and "irrelevant to today's kids"
Well, with some exeptions (ie. WB's Wartime films/specific time pieces)
I have to disagree. Kids know that dropping an anvil on someones head is not something you do. It's a cartoon and IN A CARTOON it's funny. In real life it's a bad thing.
"DON'T DO THAT KIDS"
Bottom line- We're not giving kids enough credit.
I watch cartoons with my kids and then talk about it, imitate the voices, have fun and keep it in it's proper perspective.
Common Sense is allowed.
Now video games that blatantly promote violence with guns, blood and very realistic graphics... that's a completely different story.But that's another post altogether...
"Bde,Bde, That's all folks...
(great drawing by the way)
Compared to the cartoons of my youth, today's shows really do give kids a lot more credit in terms of sophisticated storytelling. Shows like Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, SuperFriends, Thundarr The Barbarian , He-Man, and a host of Atari-based cartoons were horribly written. Shows like Danny Phantom, Justice League Unlimited, Fairly Odd Parents, etc. are much better overall. Perhaps the reason for setting the stories in school is because the majority of a child's day is spent at one, and therefore they can relate better to stories set in familar environs. I am not turned off in the slightest that networks gravitate toward stories about school-age kids. It could also serve as a nice platform for further educating kids about dealing with problems they or their friends may face.
Nice blog, BTW!
Hey Enzo, thanks for the comment and I agree %100 about the video games. I think I'll save a rant for that topic.
Mike, thanks for checking in. I agree that many of the shows we watched as kids were horribly written just as many today. While I think in some cases the designs have improved I can't help but feel the school element is a crutch and that the cartooons could stand just as well without it. I feel that the school aspect is thrown in there as a smoke screen to the censorship boards. See kids, they can save the world from alien invasion and still do their homework.
Thanks guys.
You bet they can, and be home by curfew, too :-).
Hi Jeff, here's my take:
Conflict is dynamic, and it is the source of both drama and comedy. To fuel the conflict, you need a cast of characters who may not like each other, but are forced together for some reason. The school setting is an easy way to "team-up" these kids who might otherwise avoid one another.
Hah! Great rant. I have a short and perhaps paranoid thing to add:
Perhaps it is part of the indoctrination into the working-class throngs? Why not? Plenty of intellectual types have posited for years that school teaches us little more than how to memorize stuff, ask permission to go to the bathroom (i.e. recognize and obey authority) and sit quietly in neat little rows! Ah yes, all in prepartion for their lives in the proletariat.
:)
Anyway, love the blog and your art.
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